NationStates Jolt Archive

Since the ancient times, after the fall of the Atlantean culture and the creation of Gaea, the Ispano had dwelled in the dimensional gap between Earth and its sister planet, wandering in its oddly vast expanse, exploring it from side to side, top to bottom. As time had progressed, they had come to understand that there were innumerable different Earths as well as some Gaeas, different paths they could have taken at any point of their long existence.

In other words, possibly innumerable different variations of these planets to - possibly - do trade in.

Earth stood alone in many of these possible, alternative realities they had explored, with its vastly different civilizations, most of these of species they had never even seen before. They came to understand that the Atlantean culture had not even come to existence in most habitable variations of Earth. Some of them were still on non-sapient stages of evolution, and the Ispano left those alone. There was nothing to be gained from beings with no other instincts than that of survival.

But most of the Earths they had seen had been uninhabitable, charred husks of planets, having failed to fulfil their potential, or having been destroyed by their former inhabitants in such extent that they could not revive, or never even having formed into planets at all. These grim possible Earths had been perfect sources for materials for their machines, their factory ships, their Guymelefs, as well as for themselves. If nothing organic was present to claim the area as theirs, why not exploit it?

With those that had contained at the very least vaguely humanoid, sentient cultures, they had been able to trade with to some extent, selling a few of the items they had built in their factory ships for quite a hefty profit. Many say that the Ispano sell their items with immense overprice, but this is for a reason - for no one builds their machines quite like the Ispano, the only true heritors of the fallen Atlantean civilization. But as it were, the origins, goals and history of the Ispano Clan were shrouded in mystery in all the locations they had visited and had some level of contact with. Legends did exist, but nothing truly concrete had ever surfaced - the Ispano keep to themselves, and do not tell others things they need not know.

This exploration they had committed themselves to had never ended - an infinite number of possibilities when it came to how Earth might've turned out did require an enormous amount of time, even if in the "outside world", the world beyond the dimensional gap, it would seem as though they never really did much else than sell their goods and repair them at other times.

And now, in this reality, in this dimension, one of the gigantic Ispano factory ships lazily descended from a self-created dimensional portal towards some unknown sea on the planet of Earth. Once the ship had completely exited the portal, it suddenly stopped, remaining stationary above the tranquil sea, and the portal back to their "home" closed rapidly.

It did not take them long to realize after opening the portal that this possible Earth did, at the very least, have a high probability of bearing life, for it had all the positive signs of such - expansive oceans, enough oxygen in the air, the positioning being ideal where the Sun was concerned and so on. Soon after the ship had fully shown itself, it sent out a simple message, crude even, stating their location, peaceful intentions, neutrality and willingness to sell certain items - but what these items were was something they had conveniently left out of the message.

After having done thus, they would wait for any response. As is said, haste makes waste - but time is money. They would wait, but not for all that long.

(OOC: As of yet, it has not been decided whether the Ispano will fall into the fantasy tech line or future tech line of things, but those are the two paths I would be ready to follow. If anyone of either tech lines would happen to care enough to post a reply, that will be where the Ispano Clan will be in. That, of course, means that this is an open roleplay thread.)

No reaction as of yet.

Why? There were a few options.

It was possible that the planet did not bear sentience.

It was possible that it did bear some kind of sentience, but this sentience did not have the ability to receive and/or answer to the transmission.

It was also possible that whatever existed on this Earth was just too busy with its own doings - but often peoples with high enough technology were paranoid or at least curious enough to show themselves.

It would be much easier for the Ispano if there was something capable of coming into contact with them on their own, as it would greatly reduce the amount of time required for exploration of the planet, but, as they had seen so many times before, this was not often the case. They, if anyone, knew that the looks of a planet could be deceiving.

They would wait for a bit longer, sending that message of theirs, still stating the location of the factory ship, their intentions, and the fact that they wished to sell some items, that they wished to trade. After a somewhat lengthy debate, one part was added to this message: The items were related to warfare.

Indeed, war was something that seemed to bind all sentient species together.

No response.

The massive factory ship slowly began to move eastwards from where it had come to this place, floating effortlessly through the air. The message was being sent out still, but now with constantly changing information on its location, as it still was possible they were being ignored. Even if the odds were infinitesmal - it was more likely that, if there was something in the lines of civilization out there, it was too primitive to receive it. Since, if there were advanced peoples on this Earth, they would have an obvious lack of interest in unknown ships appearing all of a sudden in their backyard, which was not something the Ispano had run into yet. Or maybe, just maybe, their ability to pick up anomalies were quite limited.

But still, they could not know for certain, not just yet. What would they find on this planet?

And thus, quite unceremoniously, the exploration phase of their visit had begun.

The journey so far had been just as uneventful as their visit to this alternate reality had been from the very beginning. No response. No visual/aural/sensor contact. Nothing. All they had seen so far had been some seabirds on some desolate islands, fish jumping out of the water and so forth, but nothing that would either prove or disprove the existence of sapient life on the planet. And so the factory ship continued to float eastwards, unhindered, above the tranquil sea.

The sea... It seemed to be the largest they had run across as of yet. It just seemed to continue... And continue... And continue. But then again, from the shape of this Earth, they had been able to calculate the fact that it was indeed much larger than the planet usually was, so the size of the ocean was not exactly surprising. But at least they did now see that the ship should have been a lot faster for the exploration of this place.

(OOC: No takers? Hmm. I guess this was a mistake... I'll have to reconsider my options.)

Still, they had not been able to pick up any other creatures than unintelligent birds and fishes, and possibly some sea mammals. Yes, the planet was alive... But did it bear anything that would understand the concept of trade? Of commerce?

Well. At least it seemed almost certain that if it did, they would have to be primitive.

And so, their so-far-boring travel to the east continued.

(OOC: Wonder how many posts saying nothing I can do. No fantasy or future tech people wanting to make contact? Oh well. Can't make a roleplay based on finding and interacting with different peoples with no response.)

OOC: Hi there! Its only really been a couple of days since you first posted, perhaps being a bit more specific with a message or actually doing something than "send floaty thing over the sea" might help.

Its also a bit of a dead time with posters right now as you keep bumping the thread, probably best if you just kicked back, read some other threads and wait for a responce from somebody, it will come eventually, perhaps post with some characters, or how your stuff works rather than the massive vagueness in your posts and folks might be more interested.

(OOC: Well, the problem with Ispano characters would be that they are immensely boring when it comes to them interacting with each other or them doing their own thing. The vagueness is somewhat forced by their own nature. There aren't any big individual characters within the Ispano Clan, no quirky personalities or the like.

And then there's the whole thing how they don't care about this Earth enough to send more than just one factory ship until such time that potential customers are found, as until they are found, there isn't much point to show any interest towards an Earth that only bears nonsapient lifeforms. They have an exorbitant amount of time on their hands. In that way, ICly, my hands are tied.

As it is, I do intend to go in the specifics about the Ispano themselves, about the things they are selling and so on, but only after this thread actually gets on the road.)

The factory ship had continued floating towards east, still with no luck coming to contact with anything but lesser, nonsapient lifeforms. All they had seen ground-wise as of yet had been a few uninteresting, foresty islands with no signs of any intelligent life.

And intelligent life was what they were looking for.

Finding anything from a planet the size of this Earth could prove to be quite the task, but they had time. After all, they were to explore the entire planet if necessary. They would find, if there is someone - or something - to find, in due time.

Unless, of course, they are called back before this could happen.